Psalm 119:1-8
Epiphany 6 - Year A
Proper 26 (31) - Year B
The Judicial Council of the United Methodist Church has recently decreed that they desire a particular outcome of an investigation and sent it back to be redone in their image. Presumably they will keep sending it back until they get the result they want. (Does anyone remember Florida and the Presidential "election"?)
A counter argument I saw online goes, "Both the Committee on Investigation and Trial Court need to be fully aware of their ability to define the meaning of chargeable offenses. They need to be aware that even though there are prohibitions about certain behaviors in the 2000 Discipline, that none of these prohibitions is actually a chargeable offense. Each Committee on Investigation and Trial Court must decide if violating one of these specific prohibition in a specific set of circumstances actually constitutes any one of the chargeable offense under ¶2702. As a trier of law, a CI or TC must review the total circumstances of the situation and all that is written in the Discipline. After such a review, it may decide a particular prohibition is unjust, oppressive or unwarranted - either in that particular circumstance or always. And if the prohibition is unjust, then it has the power to decide no violation of a chargeable offense has occurred. No one should not be convicted for violating an unjust prohibition."
We are talking here about the blessing of the laws of the Lord that lead to new life for the individual, community, and creation. The laws that don't do that can be questioned.
If we jump way to verse 175 this becomes clearer. "Let me live that I may praise you, and let your ordinances help me."
Indeed we live to love G*D and Neighbor and Self and One Another and Enemies. The laws (ways of living) that enhance this love are indeed blest and those that don't - blast us apart.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/november2003.html
Psalm 119:1-8 or Psalm 146
Ruth 1:1-18 or Deuteronomy 6:1-9
Hebrews 9:11-14
Mark 12:28-34
Why continue running in the same circle of people? Why leave for another circle?
Inasmuch as we have multiple options of where to be and with whom, these are on-going questions. We also have differing needs, some of which come to the fore for a time and some that wait for another occasion. Sometimes we respond with very practical considerations of income and retirement? Sometimes our emotional well-being overrides any other issue. There are times when an internal hope or conversation with G*D will move us past either or these or anything else we have previously used to decide. Always there is inertia or lack of imagination that can come into play.
Whether practical, emotional, hopeful, or habitual, we are responding to where we see the nearness of the "freedom" of G*D and whether we are a part of a freedom to invest in life, to love, here or there, this circumstance or that, these ones or those. The more basic our freedom, the easier it is to say "both" at the same time or sequentially.
- - -
moments of import
heighten all our senses
hearts hearing calls
mind's eyes seeing options
ties that bind touch our souls
such moments
come one per lifetime
and several
are present right now
for amusement and signifying
in this moment
we honor our ancestresses
Orpah and Ruth
both doing their best
in their every-day days
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html
What a difference a comma can make. Good for the UCC folks to use the comma in reference to what we are still learning about G*D and our relationship with same. Here, verse 3 continues to speak of those who are blessed when it describes those "who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways."[NRSV]
A first tired reading missed the comma and tied "wrong" with "walk in his ways". After shaking a weary head it finally came into focus. This reading of G*D's ways are wrong has brought forth a flurry of books in recent years about how wrong are those who seek the usual stereotypical god. Another flurry of resources have come for those who are going so much further than said stereotype, but are tarred with the same brush.
A key here is walking in G*D's ways. Note the plural "ways" of G*D. Note that walking in these ways is not the same as claiming one of them is universal. Note that walking is not static and it is not creedally constrained. Walking in the ways of G*D requires more faith than certainty, more hope than Realpolitik, and more love than personal salvation.
There is room for a goodly community to walk within G*D's ways, each with an upright heart and all with room for each other. So it is we may live long in the land.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/02/psalm-1191-8.html